


realizations, amongst other things

by gayprophets



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Humor, IDK HOW TO DESCRIBE IT just read it, POV Rose, soft that quickly devolves into hilarity; as is standard for me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-18
Updated: 2019-08-18
Packaged: 2020-09-06 11:08:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20290459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gayprophets/pseuds/gayprophets
Summary: “No, no,” the Doctor says, shaking his head and smiling a little. Rose smiles back immediately, helpless to it. “I mean I found out who he is.”“He is someone?” Rose asks, furrowing her brow. “He wasn’t always just - just a face?”“Not at all!” the Doctor says. “The Face of Boe is Jack Harkness.”Rose will maintain until the day she dies that everything following that sentence is not her fault.





	realizations, amongst other things

**Author's Note:**

> apologies to dr who stans i am but a filthy casual having fun and loving rose tyler more than life itself

“Oh, and the Face of Boe!” the Doctor, the human one, says. “Did I ever tell you about him, Rose?” They’re both lying in her bed in her parent’s house - well, mansion, but she isn’t used to calling it that. She thinks she never quite will be. She hadn’t bothered to move out - a flat by herself sounded too lonely. The Doctor’s been tracing a circular pattern on the back of her hand with his thumb for a while now, as he catches her up in jumpy fragments as to what he got up to while she... while she was away. Rose has given up on deciphering the pattern, and is just enjoying the feel of his skin against hers. It’s been an adjustment, sure, putting her head on his chest and hearing the single  _ ba-bump _ of his solitary heart, rather than the rapid snare-drum hit of two at once, but she’s getting used to it. This one is a little mouthier, maybe, and he bites his nails now when he thinks she isn’t looking, a gesture so human that when she’d first seen it happen it’d startled her, but he’s the same. Rose doesn’t think of this Doctor as  _ the other one _ anymore, because he’s not some kind of a  _ spare. _ It was just like with the regeneration - it took her a minute, but she got there eventually. It’s still him. It’ll always be him. 

“I was  _ there,” _ she huffs, rolling her eyes. “I  _ know _ him, you don’t need to tell me about him.” It’s dark in the room, she can barely make the Doctor out in the dim moonlight that drifts in through the window panes. He’s draped in muted greys and murky blues, night colors, the shadows deepening the lines around his eyes. Midnight slipped past them hours ago now. Sleep has been hard to come by for the two of them in the spare few days that they’ve been reunited - for Rose it’s because she doesn’t quite want to let him out of her sight, lest he fade from existence again. As for him, she hasn’t asked yet, but she would presume his reason is the same.

“No, no,” the Doctor says, shaking his head and smiling a little. Rose smiles back immediately, helpless to it. “I mean I found out who he is.”

“He  _ is _ someone?” Rose asks, furrowing her brow. “He wasn’t always just - just a face?”

“Not at all!” the Doctor says. “The Face of Boe is Jack Harkness.”

Rose will maintain until the day she dies that everything following that sentence is not her fault.

“He’s fucking  _ WHAT?!” _ Rose shouts, sitting up sharply to gape down at him.

“Keep your voice  _ down!” _ the Doctor hisses, but it’s too late - Tony immediately sets to wailing like a tornado siren down the hall, with multiple angry thumps from her parent’s bedroom as they get up. “God, I forgot how  _ loud _ you are - how did I manage to  _ forget _ that -!”

_ “Captain Jack?!” _ Rose continues, still shouting, because they’ve already woken Tony up, so what’s the point in lowering her volume. She pulls the straps of her camisole back up - she can hear her mum marching up the hall towards them to give them both the third degree and Rose would like  _ not _ to flash her mother - and stands up to snatch a t-shirt off the floor and chuck it at the Doctor’s face. 

“Yes!” the Doctor says, sitting up and pulling the shirt on. 

“Captain Jack  _ Harkness?!” _ she yells again, just as her mother throws the door open, banging off the wall with a slam.

“OI!” her mum bellows, turning the lights on with as much physical aggression that the action of hitting a switch can carry. Both Rose and the Doctor flinch and momentarily shield their eyes. “What the  _ hell _ is going on in here? Why are we  _ shouting _ at  _ three in the morning?!” _

“Not  _ now, _ Mum!” Rose shouts back, flapping a hand in her direction. “Jack Harkness?  _ The _ Captain Jack Harkness? The one we had a threesome with on -”

“You fucking  _ what?” _ her mother interrupts, horrified.

“I  _ said _ not now!” Rose shouts.  _ “That  _ Jack?”

“Yes, that Jack!” the Doctor yells. “What other  _ Jacks _ do we know -!”

“I'm finding it hard to believe  _ he _ becomes a  _ face _ in a fucking  _ tank, _ Doctor,  _ so sorry _ ‘bout that!” Rose hisses. “How?!”

“You woke the baby up!” her mother says.

_ “No  _ idea!” the Doctor says, looking much too delighted about that fact. “And  _ Rose _ woke the baby, not me,” he continues, throwing her directly under the bus.

“That’s hardly my fault!” Rose says, throwing her hands in the air. “You can’t just  _ surprise _ me with things like that, Doctor!  _ Jack Harkness _ is the  _ Face of Boe, _ fucking really?  _ How else _ am I supposed to deal with  _ that?!” _

“By not shouting at - ah, what time did you say it was, Jackie?” the Doctor asks, pointing towards her mother.

_ “Three in the morning!” _

“Yes, that!” He smiles at her. Rose attempts a scowl, which breaks down rather quickly until she’s grinning back at him. She can hear her father shushing Tony down the hall,  _ shh shh shh _ like the ocean against the rocks and the sand on the shoreline. 

Her mother puts her fists on her hips and looks at them both for a moment, mouth agape, before shutting it and sighing through her nose. “If either of you shout and wake Tony up again I’m throwing you both out onto the street, got that?” she says. “Don’t think I won’t!”

“Yes, Mum,” Rose says, crossing her arms.

“Yes, sorry Jackie,” the Doctor says at the same time.

Jackie shuts off the lights.

She turns them back on again.  _ “Threesome?!” _ she snaps, horrified and incredulous. 

“Mum!” Rose snaps. “I  _ can’t _ talk about this with you -,”

“Just  _ what _ were you  _ doing _ with my daughter?!” her mother starts, marching over to lay into the Doctor, and it’s all downhill from there.

Later, after the lights are off for good and her mother has gone back to her room, Rose stares at the ceiling and has a horrible realization.

“Oh my God,” she says, wrinkling her nose and screwing up her face. “We’ve seen the Face of Boe’s  _ dick.” _

The Doctor makes a noise like a cat trying to get up a hairball and turns his face into the crook of her neck. “Why would you say that, Rose?” he asks, planitive. “I could have gone my whole life without realizing that -,”

“If I have to think it  _ so do you!” _ Rose says. It’s quiet for a few minutes, then she continues - “Every man in the future sighed in relief when Jack turned into a huge face, yeah? No more competition?”

“Mm, not all of them,” the Doctor replies. “Definitely some sighs of disappointment too, eh?”

“Oh, yes,” Rose says, laughing. “Same from the women, I assume.” 

The Doctor laughs. They’re holding hands again, although she doesn’t remember that happening. Their fingers keep intertwining when she’s not paying attention - at the kitchen table, walking through town, even in their sleep. More than once she’s woken up to find their hands clasped so tightly her fingers were numb, nerveless. Their hands just don’t want to let go of each other.

_ That’s fine, _ she thinks. She doesn’t want to let go of him either.

**Author's Note:**

> forgot to add this. thanks to kate (elliewillams on tunglt) for getting me into dr who and allowing me to scream into your messages nonstop about this. what would i do without you. (probably not write any dr who fanfic)


End file.
